A Case Study in Poetic Translation and Ideology: the Italian Reception of Vladimir Mayakovsky’s Poetry

Abstract

This article investigates the Italian reception of Vladimir Mayakovsky’s poetry as a case study of the relationship between poetic translation and ideology. Based on a corpus of 96 Italian translations published in book form between 1923 and 2025, it reconstructs Mayakovsky’s trajectory within the Italian literary polysystem and identifies three major phases in his reception. Adopting a bifocal methodology that combines cultural-historical analysis with close textual readings, the study examines processes of selection, ideological marking, and translation strategies. The first phase (1914–1945) is marked by marginalisation and predominantly informative translations. The second phase (1946–1979) corresponds to Mayakovsky’s canonisation as the “poet of the Revolution”, with translations privileging ideological content over formal experimentation, while also giving rise to alternative poetic readings, most notably by Angelo Maria Ripellino. The third phase, emerging after 1989, reflects a post-ideological climate and renewed scholarly attention to Mayakovsky’s love poetry. The article argues that Mayakovsky’s Italian reception has been continuously reshaped by shifting ideological frameworks, with poet-translators playing a key mediating role.